State Rep. Randy Hunt is touting the Personal Income Tax Simplification (PITS) Act as a way to make filing state tax returns easier and free state auditors to root out waste and abuse in government.

The plan starts with taking federal taxable income and multiplying it by a percentage to get a state tax, perhaps 5 percent. “You could write this calculation on a postage stamp,” Hunt noted in a press statement. “And the need to audit this calculation would vanish.”

With a touch of humor (not unusual for Hunt), the rep suggests that, if improper reporting is suspected, the state can notify the IRS. “An unfunded mandate put onto the federal government by a state,” he wrote. “Sweet.”

Hunt would allow adjustments for Social Security income, for example, and state incentive programs such as the septic system installation credit.

Freed from their tax work, according to Hunt, state auditors could examine state agencies, departments and quasi-governmental organizations for fraud, waste and abuse of funds.

“One percent of the Health and Human Services budget is $153 million, for example,” he wrote. “If we could save this amount without reducing service levels and without cutting programs, but rather by eliminating fraudulent recipients of benefits and eliminating wasteful and abusive practices, we would produce a less costly and more sustainable state government.”